Full video is now online from yesterday’s Tokyo-based press conference for Marc Webb’s upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man. You can check it out in the player below, courtesy of YouTube user “MrJapanjp.”
The video includes questions asked of cast members Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone and producers Avi Arad and Matthew Tolmach, the latter of which began the conference by officially announcing that the film will open on June 30th in Japan, the first territory to open it anywhere in the world.
“In our movie, [Peter] finds his true love,” said Arad, when asked what sets this adventure apart from Sam Raimi’s trilogy. “Gwen Stacy was always the true love of Peter Parker… We found a very, very good story about what makes a human being. About what sets their destiny.”
He went on to tease that Rhys Ifans’ Connors will have connection to both Peter and Gwen and, apparently, Peter’s parents.
“We introduce our villain, Dr. Connors,” he continued, “and in the great tradition of Marvel, Dr. Connors is going to be connected to Peter Parker and, in our case even more interesting, to Gwen Stacy. Right there, the challenge of having to deal with a villain who is a mentor and the only one who you can look at and say, ‘So what really happened to my dad?’ That’s a very hard person to fight.”
Special footage was screened for the Japanese press which, according to Garfield, emphasized the physical nature of the film’s effects.
“As you can see, a lot of the stunts are practical and grounded in reality,” he explained. “That was something that Marc, the director, really wanted to make sure happened in this movie to set it apart from previous ones… I would exhaust myself every day and get into near-death experiences every hour on the hour… I collaborated with [the stunt team] not only on the big stunt set-pieces but also on what happens to Peters body when he gets bitten. What happens to his DNA and how that effects the way he moves and the way he interacts with objects. The idea that he has spider DNA running in his system. What that will do to his sense of space. What that will do to the sensitivity of his skin. To have an opportunity to play in that forum with creative and talented people was a real opportunity and gift.”
Stone reiterated that her take on Stacy will be a complete departure from the version played by Bryce Dallas Howard in Spider-Man 3.
“We haven’t even met Mary Jane at this point,” she said, in an arguably cryptic statement.
When asked if the film would duplicate the upside down kiss from the original, Stone said no, but then responded with the following when asked if Webb’s version would offer something similarly iconic:
“You don’t want to know! You want to watch the movie and find out. Plus, it would be weird if we were like, ‘There’s something iconic coming up!’ You’ve got to decide if it’s iconic or not. But there is a nice first kiss and it’s different than the upside down one. And we liked it.”
The Amazing Spider-Man opens domestically on July 3rd in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters.
